


der wind in den wellen

by malkinisms (hannibalisms)



Series: a curious body of onyx and blood [2]
Category: Hannibal (TV), Hannibal Lecter Series - All Media Types
Genre: Alternate Universe - Canon Divergence, F/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2013-09-28
Updated: 2013-09-28
Packaged: 2017-12-27 20:20:29
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 6,307
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/983186
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/hannibalisms/pseuds/malkinisms
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Will still loses time.  Not as often - rarely, you could say - but it happens.  Hannibal says that it is an effect of the encephalitis and its long tenure in his body.  He always says this with a tinge of remorse, but Will doesn't pay any attention to that.</p>
<p>It only happens once a month or so, more frequently if Will is stressed.  He doesn't hallucinate any longer, thankfully.</p>
            </blockquote>





	der wind in den wellen

**Author's Note:**

> the wind in the waves
> 
> mention of hannibal/clarice/will, hannibal/will, hannibal/clarice
> 
> **warnings** : discussion of ptsd, murder

Will still loses time.  Not as often - rarely, you could say - but it happens.  Hannibal says that it is an effect of the encephalitis and its long tenure in his body.  He always says this with a tinge of remorse, but Will doesn't pay any attention to that.

It only happens once a month or so, more frequently if Will is stressed.  He doesn't hallucinate any longer, thankfully.

It worries Clarice, because there may come a moment when he loses time and they cannot find him, and they have to wait for him to come back before he can return home.

They never last for long, either; an hour, a day at the most.  He says it's like being in a fog or wrapped in cotton wool; he knows what is going on in the vaguest terms, but not really.  It's like he can't control his body except in the littlest of ways, but if he is more in tune with his body the faster he can wake up.

Hannibal tells them one day, when they're stretched out atop each other in bed, Clarice in the middle and supine on her stomach, that they are [fugue states](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fugue_state).  He explains that fugue states usually involve wandering, and that after recovery from fugue, previous memories usually return intact, but there is typically amnesia for the fugue episode.  People normally only have one episode, however, so it's possible that it is not fugue.

Will makes some kind of grunt on her right but then turns to look at Hannibal over the expanse of her back.  "Still crazy, then?"

Clarice can  _feel_  the sharp look Hannibal sends him.  "Nonsense. Your eidetic abilities do not make you less sane than the average person.  Neither does your past illnesses make you less sane.  It is what it is, as the saying goes."

"I hate it," Will mumbles, pressing his face into her side, taking a few breathes against her skin. "I hate that it makes me lose time with you."

Neither of them have anything to say to that.

* * *

Hannibal leaves them sometimes, for a few days or a few weeks, but he always stays in contact.  It's hard for him, after so many years alone, to remain around them at all times.  He likes it well enough, that's clear in the way that he stays in bed until one of them wakes up, because he doesn't want to leave them alone in bed.

But, Clarice understands when he'll pack a bag or two and go off somewhere, to come back later warm and full with something, gifts tucked away between his suits.

Hannibal doesn't go often, three or four times a year, and it allows Hannibal some time to himself as well as allowing Clarice and Will time together.

Clarice does the same for them: she'll go off for a few days to somewhere that Will and Hannibal have no interest in, and when she comes home Will is at peace and dotted with bruises, happy to sprawl in her lap and let her care for him.

When they ask Will if he wants time alone, if he wants to go somewhere, he shakes his head and tells them that he was alone for long enough.  It makes sense.

It's one of those times when Hannibal leaves them, this time for a week to return to Lithuania.  They don't ask him about it, and he doesn't share about his trips there.  It's something so viscerally private that it makes Clarice cringe to even think about asking him, even though she knows what happened in his childhood.  He always leaves pale and wan, and though it must be difficult to return, he comes home looking flushed with life.

She does not ask, and Will does not ask, because they understand.

They drive to the airport in silence, because although they understand Hannibal's need to be on his own it doesn't make it easy.  He has become such an intrinsic part of their life that anything else is strange.  They take him to the airport and drop him off, because that is how Hannibal prefers it.  The few moments where they watch him walk into the terminal are always hard, because although they do not admit it - not aloud - they fear that he may not return to them.

Hannibal said it was foolish the first time Clarice told him that, pressed up against his side with Will on the other.  "There is no place that I would rather be," he says, which is an admission that they do not often hear from him.

As they drive home, Will's hand creeps over the gear shift to curl around hers, and it warms her.  Will has come to be close with her, share little things with her that he does not share with Hannibal.  She does the same for him, because it means the world to her.  Hannibal is sparse with affection outside of the bedroom, and Will needs tactile reassurance.  Clarice gives that to him because she loves it, and loves how he'll press into the palm of her hand or wrap his arms around her waist.

Hannibal prefers to watch them, a small smile on his face.  It makes her wonder if Hannibal gives affection sparingly in the manner that Will craves simply because he knows Clarice will grant it to him.

When they get home they sit in the driveway, watching the waves on the other side of the street for a moment.  Will's head is cocked to one side as he watches the grasses dance and sway.

"Do you want to get a pizza tonight?" she asks, softly, trying to save the moment.

"That would be nice," he answers, squeezing her fingers tightly before letting go to get out of the car.

They adore Hannibal, but sometimes, junk food is a necessity.

* * *

The pizza they get from the city is not the same as the New York style that they both love; it's enough, though, and the remains of the box are spread out across the coffee table.

They are sprawled on the couch watching 1950s films, Will's head in her lap.  His hair has grown out, from tight curls to something softer, and it pleases her immensely to card her fingers through them.  Will presses up into her hand if she pauses, much like a cat shamelessly begging for pets.

Will's hand rests on her bare knee; it's just hot enough that she has begun to [wear dresses](http://shop.nordstrom.com/S/kate-spade-new-york-semma-bow-belt-full-skirt-dress/3547750?origin=category&BaseUrl=Dresses), most of them end just at the middle of her calves, but they always ride up on the couch, and none of them care.

His fingers stroke over the inside of her knee, pausing over the scars from bike accidents as a child and from training at Quantico.  Occasionally, his nails will catch on a scar and she'll shiver, some kind of instinctive reaction.

Sometime in their movie marathon, they shift so that Clarice has one leg on the couch and the other planted on the floor, Will cradled in the vee of her legs.  This is the position he likes most, she's realized, able to lay on his shoulder with his head on her thigh.  One hand is always trapped under his stomach, the other tucked under the thigh his head rests on.

In this position, he can see the television as well as out the front window to watch the world.  He has always been that way, since he has been with them; he watches the world to try and protect them, and he does a good job.  Hannibal reminds him that he does not need to do so, but Will just shrugs and says that it is second nature.  Hannibal pulls him close, then, and presses a kiss to his head.

Hannibal says he is not capable of love, but Clarice doubts that.  She sees love in how Hannibal gentles Will after he comes back to them out of his fugue, how Hannibal does not press or prod him.  There is love in how Hannibal cooks things that they each adore, even if he finds them plebeian.  There is love in how Hannibal smiles when both Will and Clarice fall back into the patois of their youth, southern charm through and through.  There is love in how Hannibal makes time for them both, no matter what.

If that is not love, Clarice does not know what it is.

His head tilts to one side and he presses a wet, sticky kiss to her skin, setting his teeth there for a moment before smiling up at her through his eyelashes.

"Cheeky," she says, but sinks her fingers into his hair and scratches at his scalp anyway.  His eyes slip half shut, lips parting into a smile.

"Feels good," Will says, rolling a little to get his shoulders under her thighs, face pressing fully into her skin, and Clarice shivers when his breath floats over her leg, warm and damp.

She strokes at his head, smiling when she can feel him grin into her flesh, and after a moment his fingers shift and curl into the bend of her knee, playing at the skin, and she jumps and laughs.

Out of all of them, Will is the most playful, the most free with his smiles and his affections, eager to get Clarice to laugh or get Hannibal to give him a full grin, not those little quirks of his lips that he has most of the time.  He knows what works best on each of them; with Hannibal he has more time spent with him, even if that time was fraught with tension, but Clarice is far easier to read in general.

Will’s fingertips drag down the back of her calf and she kicks his fingers away, only to have them return until they’re laughing and rolling on the couch, Will pinning her legs with his elbows.  His smile lights her up, warmth filling her stomach and her chest.  If there is one thing that she is proud of, it is that they have gotten Will to smile.

Somehow, he manages to pin her down and press his face into her shoulder as he laughs, eyes crinkled at the corners.  Moments like this, his scars fade into memory, and he is young again.

Will isn’t  _old_  by any stretch of the word, but he’s older than she is, and sometimes she remembers it in technicolor when his knee bothers him, or his back.  Little things like that jolt her into the present and into remembering what they have each been through.

Clarice wraps her arms around his shoulders, pressing a kiss to the side of his head and breathe in the scent of his shampoo; one of the few things that Hannibal insists upon is that Will is not allowed, under  _any_  circumstances, to choose the products that they keep in the bathroom.  The time that he let Will choose, Hannibal threw them out after one shower and didn’t speak to him for the rest of the afternoon.  They learned that lesson quickly.

Now, he smells like [patchouli and lemongrass, oranges and pine](http://www.etsy.com/listing/153681978/namaste-patchouli-blood-orange); masculine and crisp, and it makes Clarice want to lick across his skin, collect it all on her tongue and memorize it.

(Hannibal, on the other hand, smells of [mint and cloves](http://www.amathiasoapworks.com/product/thrasos-clove-mint-shea-butter-soap/) and [spicy Assam tea](http://www.soaplandia.com/sl-o8).  Clarice isn’t sure if it’s because he drinks so much tea that it has soaked into his skin, or if it is, in fact, in the soap he uses.)

(She, on the other hand, prefers a [sweet almond scent](http://www.soaplandia.com/sl-a1), so much so that Hannibal has taken to making sure that there are candles about with the same scent, jars that he's made himself.  If he makes almond desserts, too, no one complains.)

“Clarice,” Will mumbles, “god, you’re just - so fucking perfect,” the words slurred and sweet.

“I doubt that,” she answers, “but thank you, all the same.”

"No, you just - I'm still so fucked up but you and Hannibal don't care, even when I wake you both up or hit you in my sleep or something.  You take care of me when I have dreams about the past, or nightmares, and I don't even deserve it."

Clarice pinches him on the side.  "Stop that, right now.  You're worth everything we give you.  You don't believe it, but I wouldn't lie to you.  You know that."

 "Promise?"

She would smile about how he needs reassurance, but at the same time it makes her sad; she had hoped that by now he would be comfortable with them and trust them.  It hurts, just a little, enough to make her hold him closer, tightly, enough to crush the breath from his chest.

"Cross my heart and hope to die," she whispers, thinking of her mother and father, her brothers, and how she broke those promises.  She won't break this one.

They stay like that, collapsed against each other, for so long that their movie channel switches from 1950s to some god-awful horror movie and Clarice turns it to a the home renovation channel for lack of anything else.

The moon is huge over the horizon.  It hangs low and Will is breathing so slow and deep that Clarice thinks he's asleep, until he speaks again.

"Do you think Hannibal would let us get a dog?"

Clarice can't help the ugly bark of laughter.  "Oh my god, Will, I have no idea.  Can you imagine Hannibal with a dog?  Brushin' it, takin' it for walks."

Will snuffles a laugh into her collarbone. "Chasing it 'round, being stern at it for getting fur on his suits."

Clarice tries to stifle a laugh but can't. "Tryin' to feed it gourmet meats and gettin' frustrated when it just looks at him."

Will starts laughing so hard the couch shakes and he can hardly get the words out.  "Standing in the kitchen ... with his hands on his hips, 'I have made you ... a [ _filet de bœuf_  with a maple balsamic reduction](http://www.cookingchanneltv.com/recipes/nadia-g/filet-mignon-drizzle-with-a-maple-balsamic-reduction-served-with-sweet-roasted-cherry-tomatoes-and-parmesan-potato-croquettes.html), why do you not eat?'"

"Get dirty paw prints all over the floor, he'l just follow it around with a mop, grumbling when he think we can't hear," Clarice adds, pressing her lips to Will's temples as they laugh together.

They peter off after a moment, and Will shifts them all at once, the muscles bunching in his forearms as he sits back on the couch and takes Clarice with him to straddle his lap.

"Seriously, though."

Clarice pushes his hair back from his face and Will's eyes slip shut as she combs it back, trails her fingers over the curve of his skull and down the back of his neck to thumb at this collarbone.  There are still mottled bruises around the base of his neck from where Hannibal held him down a bit ago, and Clarice can see the shape of fingers.

"I don't know," she says slowly, "that is really something that you would have to ask him.  I can't imagine him abiding one."

"He was always kind to Winston, and the others," Will tells her, almost petulant. "he was never unkind to them."

"Because he wanted you, Will," Clarice responds, "but think about it - he was kind to your dogs because he wanted  _you_ , and the dogs were pat of the package.  He was kind to Mason Verger's dogs because he let them  _eat Verger's face_  as he peeled it off.  He was kind to Krendler's dogs for the same reason, in the end.  The common denominator?  Feeding them humans." _  
_

"I don't think Hannibal ever  _fed my dogs humans_ ," Will grumbles.

"If he fed them sausage or bits of veal, it wasn't made of pork or beef."

Will sinks down in the couch a little, face bitter.  "I miss having a dog."

"Don't pout," Clarice admonishes, pressing a kiss to the wrinkle between his brows, the tip of his nose, the ridge of a cheekbone, before getting to his lips.

They're chapped and bitten but still soft, and the scar tissue that cleaves his upper lip has regained sensation.  She loves kissing him, just as much as she loves getting him to smile or making his back bow in pleasure.

She loves that he has learned it is okay to ask for pleasure - or demand it, when he's feeling bold, which is getting to be more often - and that he is content to fling his arms around one or both of them.

"I love you," he tells her, and the words are soft and muffled against her mouth.  Near on three years together, the three of them, and he still blushes when he says it to either of them, flush traveling from his neck up to his face and down his chest.

"And I love you," she responds.  She never says "too."  It makes it sounds like only an affirmation, not an admission; it makes her feel like it doesn't mean as much.

She doesn't know if it's true or not, but neither Will nor Hannibal have ever used "too."  Perhaps it is just a quirk of their personalities, what little they have in common.

"Come on," she says, "bed."

* * *

She wakes in the middle of the night, sudden and violent.  At first, she doesn't know what woke her, but it becomes apparent when Will isn't in bed with her, but standing in front of the window.

"Will?"

He turns, and Clarice knows that he's himself, not in fugue.  His face is pale and drawn.  His boxers are damp with sweat, and his chest is dotted with it.

"I woke you.  I'm sorry."

"Don't worry.  What's wrong?"

Will shrugs and turns back to the window, watching the waves lap against shore; she can't see them, but she knows that's what he sees.  "Bad dreams, memories, whatever you want to call them.  The usual."

She sits up, her knees to her chest, wrapping her arms around them.  "Do you want to talk about it?"

He runs his fingers through his hair, heaving a great sigh before he pulls the curtains shut and returns to the bed.  "I just keep seeing her.  Georgia.  I don't even know where it's coming from.  I haven't thought about her in years, but all of a sudden I keep seeing her.  I keep remembering convincing her that she was a person, someone alive, and then she  _wasn't_ ; she's one of the people that I couldn't save, and she just keeps coming back.  I want her out of me but she won't  _go_." _  
_

Will curls up against her, almost like a child, pressing his mouth to the skin of her thigh and breathing deep.  "I can feel her, just like I used to be able to, but when I try to shut her out she just fades away, rather than  _going_."

Clarice scratches her nails down his back, soothing but territorial.  She remembers Hannibal saying once that Will needs to be muscled down, treated like a skittish animal sometimes.  Hannibal has the raw strength to pin Will down and use his hands to sooth his aches and his needs, to make his hands the messenger of calm.

If that doesn't work, Hannibal can take him down - and has done so, when Will bares his teeth and fights back - and Will relents until Clarice can settle down next to him and Will will rub his face against the nearest patch of skin.

Clarice doesn't have the same strength, but she has the knowledge that Hannibal has given her.  Will is always set to relax against her, because he knows that she will not baby him; he fights Hannibal sometimes because he knows they both enjoy it.  It's a give and take.

He relaxes in degrees, until he's supine on the bed and and blinking lazily.

"Why do you think she's with you?"

He hums a little, his eyelids slipping shut, and his eyes moving behind the delicate tracery of veins.  "Sometimes I think they come back because ... because they don't want to be forgotten.  Georgia was always forgotten.  She always forgot them."

He pauses, rolling onto his back and looking up at the ceiling.  "That's how it is.  No one wants to be forgotten, even if they have been dead for years.  I think about them, sometimes.  Maybe I don't think about Georgia enough, and she's come back."

Clarice doesn't say anything, just tugs the blankets around until they're both under them again, and molds herself along his side.  She traces the scar on his abdomen until he catches her hand, and they sleep again.

* * *

 

She wakes in sensations: the warm sun across her legs, some bird chirping outside their window, the lap of the waves and a breeze, a warm body across her legs.

There's a mouth at her knees, the rub of a beard that's a few days old.  She opens her eyes slowly, watching the ceiling fan for a moment before she looks down at Will, who's resting on her calves.

"You're awake," he rumbles, his voice deep with sleep and arousal.  He's bolder in the morning, waking her up with his mouth or his hands, more prone to take what he wants than he is any other time of the day.

She answers by gripping his hair at the top of his head and pulling him upwards, gently but insistent.  He follows, for now, and she doesn't care that either of them have morning breath when they kiss.  It turns filthy soon, still tired and sloppy, as Will licks his way into her mouth, nipping at her bottom lip.

He slithers down her body soon enough, pushing her [nightgown](http://shop.nordstrom.com/s/cosabella-dream-babydoll/3479236) above her hips.  She reaches to take it off but he stops her, eyes liquid and huge.  "Leave it," he tells her, "I like it."

Will blushes but it makes her smile that he can tell her what it is that he likes.  She settles back down into the pillows, legs splayed out around him.

He presses kisses to her stomach, soft and wet, nosing down and breathing her in.

Clarice loves these moments, when Will lets himself go, lets himself take what he wants.  He does not do it much with Hannibal, just because more often than not Hannibal will know what Will needs before he does.  Sometimes he needs it fast and furious, where he presses her up against the counter or a table and fucks her for his pleasure, hers only an afterthought.  Other times, and more often than not, he wants to go slowly, take his time, make her come once or twice before he  _finally_  slides inside of her.

Today seems to be a combination of the two: there are teeth today, but he makes sure that she's comfortable.  He's unfailingly sensible, her Will.

Will likes how she sounds, always has, even when he wasn't comfortable being with her.  He would sit in the armchair as Hannibal fucked her and when she would try to control herself, Will would say that he liked hearing her noises, how she was pure in her pleasure.  She wouldn't exaggerate, but if she was a little louder, and little more strident, and if it got Will to come harder - well, no one was complaining.

When he was comfortable with her being close to them when Hannibal fucked him, she would talk to him; tell him how gorgeous he was, how they looked together, how they were a feast for the eyes.

"Please," he would demand, "tell me more," and she would.  At first it was difficult to be positively filthy in his ear, whisper about the things she wanted for and from the both of them, but it got easier.

It got easier when Will would angle up on the bed for each strike of Hannibal's hand, when he would reach back and grip Hannibal's thigh, urging him forward, harder, more.

It was easy when Will's hands would be tied over his head and she could ride him, deep and slow, and he would moan out his pleasure as  _she_  fucked  _him_ , not the other way around.

After the first time Will panicked that she would get pregnant, working himself into a panic attack.  It took a bit to calm him down, explain that she went through a sterilizing procedure ages ago, and there was no way that she would bear children.

"Oh," he had said, and that was that.

Will moans and she turns from her memories and back to the present.

"Shit," he says, pressing his nose into the crease between thigh and groin, tongue tracing the edge of her panties, a [silk and lace number](http://shop.nordstrom.com/S/simone-perele-amour-tanga/3564822) that he had bought her last year for Christmas.

"Is it - are you -  _fuck_ ," he stutters.

"You're  _wet_ ," he manages after a few seconds and a deep breath.  "I love that."

"It's what should happen," she quips, and is gifted with a sharp moan and a grin.

"'S for me, though," he tells her, and the quick press of his mouth against the wet patch of her panties is enough to make her jerk towards his mouth.

"'S all for me," he mumbles, possession sweet and sticky.

She cannot resist pestering him.  "Is it?"

His answer is a glare from under her legs as he relieves her of her underwear (none too gently) and throws them somewhere in the room, something that Hannibal would sigh at and make a mental note to fetch later.

He squeezes his way under her, making sure to jostle her as much as possible, retaliation for the comment, until her thighs rest around his head.  His curls tickle where they touch, and it's far more arousing than it should be.

Perhaps it's just the realization that this is  _theirs_ , hers and Will's and Hannibal's, and that Will is comfortable with eating her out until she pushes him away, gasping for breath and a reprieve.

The difference between the two of them is always shocking.  Hannibal prefers to take his time, make her work for it.  But Will - Will makes love like he's dying, like it's a last meal, like he's  _ravenous_  for it.

Clarice never knows what he'll do, because he's learned all the little things that make her back jerk, her thighs tighten around his head, her nails dig into his shoulders and leave half-moons in his skin.  He told her, once, that it was overly satisfying to get her control to break because she was just as controlled as Hannibal.

They had agreed that Hannibal losing control was the most satisfying thing, but Will reckons that she's a  _very_  close second.

What he doesn't like, however, is when she gets into her own head, when she  _thinks_  when he's trying to make her come, so he plays dirty.

He laves the flat of his tongue over her, just shy of hard enough, and she yanks on a lock of his hair in retaliation.

When Will looks up, Clarice is caught off guard by the darkness of his eyes, pupils blown wide and iris thin.  He  _wants_ , and Clarice will let him take.

One hand presses down on her pelvis, and the other grips the meat of her thigh, a solid weight, a reminder of the strength that he has in his hands.  If he wanted, he could pin her, but he does not, not now.

"Will," she sighs, and his eyes slip shut and she can feel his breath on her.

She wants to thrust up, but that's not what Will wants, so she just waits,  _waits_ , until his eyes open and shut once, and he opens his mouth over her clit.  It’s hot and wet and then his tongue presses down, just a little rough against her clit, his tongue hot and warm and foreign and so right, pressing and licking and then his teeth press against her, gently, just rolling her clit, and then he sucks, powerful.

She can't help the groan of his name, and she gets a moan in response, and she can feel it through her core, a live wire sparking and popping.

He turns his head and presses a sucking kiss to her thigh, livid and warm, and she  _loves_  it, loves this.

Her muscles tighten and strain as she works to not buck him off when his mouth returns to her, when he presses the broad flat of his tongue against her clit and slides it up, a long, slow drag that has her gushing.

(Will had said, once, that he loves this part of her, that she gets wet for either of them and there's no prep needed, not really, and they can just slide in, slide  _home_.)

One of his hands slides down from her slit and he’s pressing two fingers against her entrance. They tease around the rim as he works, tongue lapping at her in a slow rhythm that’s driving her out of her mind.  She doesn't know how long he keeps at it, but it feels like forever.

"Will, just - come  _on_ ," she says, dangerously close to a whine, wanting more of him, whatever he wants to give her.  He laughs against her clit and the vibrations send her over the edge, just enough, glorious and warm because he can get her there faster than anyone else, even Hannibal.

She can feel herself getting wetter, pulsing, can feel her hole fluttering around the very tips of his fingers.  She wants to pull away, just enough to keep her muscles working and twitching, because it's so good, but she doesn't.  Her thighs tighten and Will is gasping for breath against her, stilling, waiting a moment for her to come down a little.

"Again?" he asks, and she can't speak to answer, just a nod of her head, and she can  _feel_  him smile against her.

He goes to one finger, square-tipped and slender, slowly pumping in and out, and it's nowhere  _near_  enough.  Impatient, she thrusts her hips down, spurring him on, and he laughs (an out of breath laugh, she notices in the hazy back of her mind) - and he presses in another finger, rotating them as he goes and then sliding them back out until he just has the tips inside of her. He spreads them, holding her open, and after a moment, adds a third.

It's just enough but  _not_  at the same time, and she can't help digging a heel into his back to spur him on.  The stretch burns a little in an addictive way, and she moves her hips in circles, squeezing his fingers, her hole trying to pull him in deeper. He obliges, rocking his fingers in and out, but never gives her the fourth, won't, can't, or something like that.

She can see his hips twitching on the bed, and realizes dimly that he's still wearing boxers, the same boxers that he was wearing in the early morning light.

"Will,  _now_ ," and it's not a request but a command, the tone of voice that always makes him obey and scramble up her body, fingers leaving abruptly and almost painfully.

"Clarice," he says, "please," and she has no idea what he's asking her for, but she will give it to him.

"Anything."

He turns her with gentle hands until she's on her stomach, splayed out for him, nightgown still twisted around her chest and shoulders.  His hands traverse the patch of her back, like he's trying to memorize it in case she takes it away, but she never would.

She twists just enough to find his mouth and he gives it to her, tongue hot and slick and he tastes of her.  She never thought she would like that, and yet ... and yet, it's one of the things that she loves the most.

He rears back and struggles out of his boxers.  It would be comical, if he wasn't so glorious, strong and muscled.  She's lucky in both of them.  Sometimes she wonders if she is good enough; she's getting older, though she's not  _old_ , and she wonders what they see in her.  She does not care to think about it, really, because he's finally naked and warm and sweating against her.

Will presses one kiss to the arch of her back, but before she can really process it, Will’s pushing her gently forward and up, just a little, and he presses in, hard and warm and  _alive_.

"Shit," he mutters, and she moans, feeling loved and alive herself, and thrusts her hips back, impatient, taking him in all in one slide.

His fingers pinch her hips, a little reprimand, but he doesn’t waste any time, taking her by the hips, sliding out, and slamming back in. He sets an absolutely brutal rhythm, doing his best to keep her still as he fucks into her with deep, hard strokes.

She's close again, she can feel it building, pressing inside her, but she wants to wait for him, hold it back.  Will can feel it, though, ever perceptive, and slips one of his hands down and presses a finger against her.

He traces her cunt, pressing in at the top and sliding the tip down all the way to her hole, dipping in just a little, pressing at his own cock before sliding back up, down again, and pressing one finger in alongside him before moving back to her clit. He toys with it, flicking back and forth as his fingers dig into her skin and he's still fucking her, deep and good.  He moves her a little, tilts her hips, pressing her harder onto his finger and then back on his cock, finding the perfect new angle to hit something,  _oh god_ , and she hears moaning but it takes a moment to register that it's  _her_.  Will is driving again and again and again onto that spot, relentless now that he's found it, gasping and swearing.

His finger presses down once more, and that's  _it_ , that's all she has in her, like liquid fire or electricity, and she comes, head snapping back and Will's mouth presses into her shoulder.

His hips are still grinding into her, sloppy and uncoordinated, bent on coming, claiming her as his own just as Hannibal claims her, and claims Will.

It all goes fuzzy for a moment, but then it clears, and she feels Will still except for minute jerks of his hips, pressed fully into her, coming in hard, shuddering jerks.

They're both breathing hard but they don't care to move from each other, and Will settles down on her back gently.  He rolls her on her side, still in her but softening.  His hands are gentle and sweet as they sweep over her, hips and stomach and thighs.

Will's hands smooth the little tremors away that make her stomach muscles jerk, but she digs an elbow into his stomach when they stroke over her clit momentarily.

"Not yet," she mumbles, and he laughs into her shoulder.

"Okay," he answers.  She's tired, and Will must be; she can always sleep for hours afterwards, no matter who has made love to her.

"I adore you," he says, lips pressed behind her ear, fingers passing over her stomach, seeking hers out.

They twine together, and Will sighs as he settles in.

"She's gone," he says, some time later, while they drift together, watching the world pass out their window.

"Is that good?"

Will shrugs.  "Maybe I should do what Hannibal said; start writing about them, so they aren't forgotten."

"I think that's a good idea, darling."

"Mmm," Will responds.  It's noncommittal, but more than likely, he will.

* * *

 

Hannibal is gone two weeks.

He calls them, five days after leaving, and tells them that he is staying for a for a little longer, just because there are some things that he wants to do before coming home.

They accept it, because what else are they to do?  Hannibal needs his time, just as they do, and they understand.

They frolic around countryside, going to the beach and the libraries and the museums because it fills the Hannibal-shaped void they have.  It's silly, because he'll be home, but it helps.

Will goes out for a run one evening a few days before Hannibal is due home, and when he comes home his jacket is distended and lumpy.

"Oh no," she says, " _no_ ," and points at the door.  "We'll take it to a rescue."

"Just for the night," Will says, and a little grey head pokes from his jacket, all blue eyes and lop ears and puppy exuberance, some kind of Staffordshire Bull Terrier.

She breathes her acceptance, but  _one night, William_ , and they take the pup to the veterinarian and are told he's not chipped and therefore a stray, and when they both turn pleading eyes upon her - well, she has a soft spot.

They set the pup up - Lord Byron, Byron for short, Will tells her - in a small study on the ground floor, one that they hardly ever use.  He curls up in the crate, tired and sweet, and sleeps.

"Well, damn," Clarice says.  "We've got a dog."

"He's been good though," Will adds, "he's been home all day and hasn't been bad."

"So he has," Clarice allows, "but you can tell Hannibal."

Hannibal heaves a great sigh when Will introduces Byron, but the dog does not jump or paw or behave badly.

He ignores Byron, for the most part, until Clarice wakes in the middle of the night and finds Hannibal awake and reading in an armchair near the window, Byron in his lap and his book balanced on the curve of Byron's back.

"Not a word," Hannibal whispers, eyes sharp, and Clarice settles back in the bed and next to Will.

(She tells him in the morning.  Will gives Byron a slice of bacon in response.  Hannibal sighs into his tea.)


End file.
